The MSE Share Index recovered some of yesterday’s losses as it bounced back by 0.25% to 4,566.103 points on improved trading activity amounting to €267,000.
Most notably, FIMBank plc advanced 1.3% to a fresh 2-year high of USD0.775 across 26,000 shares. The trade finance specialist is due to hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Tuesday 10 May.
HSBC Bank Malta plc and Malta International Airport plc closed at €1.65 (+0.9%) and €4.37 (+0.7%) respectively on insignificant volumes. MIA shareholders will receive the recently approved final gross dividend of €0.1077 per share (net: €0.07) on 19 May. On Tuesday, the airport operator published its traffic results for the month of April revealing a further 5.7% growth in passenger movements to 415,409 following a 3.8% increase in seat capacity.
Meanwhile, Bank of Valletta plc (37,563 shares) and International Hotel Investments plc (28,850 shares) traded unchanged at the €2.27 and €0.62 levels respectively. Last Friday, BOV reported an improved net profit figure of €44.6 million for the first six months of its financial year ending 30 September 2016. The Directors declared a gross interim dividend of €0.0391 per share (net: €0.0254). This is payable on 27 May to those shareholders as at close of trading on 10 May.
GO plc managed to recover from an intra-day low of €3.45 to close unchanged at the €3.50 level on volumes of 6,900 shares. The quad-play telecoms operator is due to hold its AGM on 11 May, during which shareholders will, amongst other resolutions, be asked to approve the payment of a final net dividend of €0.10 per share (payable on 13 May).
RS2 Software plc (26,855 shares) touched an intra-day high of €3.82 before easing back to yesterday’s closing price of €3.799 across 26,855 shares. Last week, RS2 revealed that its post-tax profits for the year ended December 2015 surged by nearly 70% to €4.87 million (2014: €2.88 million).
The directors recommended a final net dividend of €0.0278 per share (2014: €0.0222) to all shareholders as at close of trading on 19 May (payable on 30 June) subject to approval at the upcoming AGM to be held on 23 June. The Directors also recommended a bonus share issue of 1 new share for every 18 shares held (cut-off date: 19 May) and a 5 for 3 share split (cut-off date: 30 June).
Also in the IT sector, 6pm Holdings plc retained its all-time high of GBP1.00 on light volumes totalling just 2,600 shares.
Two single deals of 5,000 shares each pulled the equities of Medserv plc and Tigne’ Mall plc 0.3% and 0.1% lower to the €1.784 and €1.149 levels respectively.
On the bond market, the RF MGS Index suffered its steepest decline in over two weeks as it dropped by 0.19% to a one-week low of 1,145.066 points, reflecting the widened spreads between the yields of the German Bund and of the two largest peripheral countries – Italy and Spain. Indeed, while the 10-year benchmark German Bund yield eased from yesterday’s high of 0.23% to a low of 0.19% today, the Italian and Spanish counterparts gained ground. Most notably, the gap between Italian and German 10-year bond yields stretched to 131 basis points – its widest level in nine weeks.